


Tantalus and the Final Favour

by nonky



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23678953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: She knew Owen could look good, feel good, be a tender lover and still be a bad person. She knew people operated on different modes within the spheres of their livings and their personal lives. There had never been anything conflicted between them except his irritation she'd been putting herself at risk.  He had a nimble mind, and capacity to change it for circumstances presenting themselves in new ways.Spoilers for 1x17 and the promo only for 1x18. Major Character Death implied.
Relationships: Nancy Drew/Owen Marvin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Nancy Drew TV Series (2019)





	Tantalus and the Final Favour

Nancy had her side of the bed after two nights spent with Owen. It felt more private in his room than it really was, with a house full of relatives and party guests about to realize there was a tragedy upstairs. She sat down stiffly, trembling with an absence of his bigger form folding to fit her arms.

She couldn't do anything. Nothing for Owen, with her frantic grab of every towel until he was nearly buried underneath them and her whole weight trying to shove his blood back inside him. An ambulance arrived in the Marvin's neighbourhood faster than most, and there were paramedics pulling her away within minutes. It didn't matter. Owen's skin was grey, his body cooling so fast. She fought to touch him, his cheek the same angular fit to her palm with just a fashionable shading of neat stubble. 

She'd shouted herself raw, mostly just his name. She knew the limitations of her first aid courses. The professionals might save him yet, but it would take a very lucky turn. If luck was a real force in the universe, she'd used more than her share to survive recently. Nancy didn't think it would take her credit and give her this break. 

She wasn't crying. She didn't want to ask why it had happened or who would want Owen to die so terribly. She felt people trying to pull her to her feet, so she went. She kept walking as the activity behind her faded with the buzz of adrenaline leeching the last of her endurance. For once, the mystery before her was too much. The man she knew was sweet to her, had a respectable living, and she had put the charm against the Agleaca around his neck. No answer would satisfy her, and none of his secrets could be awful enough to deserve that death.

Her body was on hold, bloody hands in her lap. She slumped a little but would never be able to sleep. Normally she would practice keeping the details of a room in her mind, memorizing a floor plan and the little objects that made it personal. She tried it just to see if her mind was still there.

It was masculine, but a little too trendy for Owen to have had much input. Aunt Diana had a designer who was determined to earn commission. The subtle nautical theme ran alongside a lot of small, expensive items in lighter tones than the slate grey-blue of the bedding. Nancy thought the effect was supposed to be water and waves. The painting across from the bed showed a ship steering indomitably into a stormy wake. The layers of water and foam looked strangely solid and set in stone, as if the ocean had formed teeth to snap the graceful ship in half. 

She knew Owen could look good, feel good, be a tender lover and still be a bad person. She knew people operated on different modes within the spheres of their livings and their personal lives. There had never been anything conflicted between them except his irritation she'd been putting herself at risk. He had a nimble mind, and capacity to change it for circumstances presenting themselves in new ways. 

The same strength of character that made him appealing would have made him dangerous to his family's enemies. The Hudsons treated him like a close second to Diana Marvin, a woman who had been ruling her family concerns four decades longer than Owen's five years. 

Nancy felt her lips part on a tiny sob. She was a Hudson in secret. She had asked Ryan Hudson to meet her at the house and he'd left only a few minutes ago. She didn't suspect he'd gone after Owen, but he'd been gleeful at the idea of his death just that day. He'd said it like a wish. Diana's party included every amenity, with a guard outside next to the valet station. They knew at least one Hudson had crashed the party.

She'd led her biological father into a murder, practically named him by getting him to meet there. Carson was safely home from prison, and Nancy couldn't have framed Ryan more neatly if she'd planned it with every guest and employee flooding the house and garden. He'd been creeping through the woods behind the Marvin house with a group of teenagers for a little bonfire ceremony.

She was his alibi, but no police officer would accept she'd invited him to a blood ritual as her newly revealed father. The location was just a convenience for Bess' party responsibilities as the newest Marvin cousin. It was too odd without the story of a vengeful sea spirit. Her friends were still at risk. She didn't have the luxury of stopping when the blood wouldn't. 

There was a bit of her left to force weak ankles and knees to straighten and get her pacing. She washed her hands and shuddered on nausea. Owen wouldn't want five other people to die with him, and she might have marked Ryan in the curse as well. Nancy had no choice but to be the detective she knew she couldn't count on finding in Horseshoe Bay's police department. 

She searched the room with her gaze, desperate to get a start. Owen would have most things in his phone. His office was paperless when possible, and he brought work home on a laptop she didn't see out in the open. There was very little of his choosing in the room, though he'd said Diana let him pick the artwork from the family vault. The ship sailing through a storm was his taste. She looked at it sadly. 

Strength as a man couldn't make a ship more than a wooden vessel fighting an immortal thing. Owen was gone. As she stared at it, breathing hard, Nancy saw some oddly repeated strokes in the waves. It was artfully done, but it looked almost like cursive hidden sideways. Maybe she was hallucinating anything like a clue, but it felt right Owen had unknowingly done her this last favour. 

She lifted the painting down and set it flat on the bed. The emptiness would wait for her to fill it with the ache of Owen's loss. He wasn't there to help her, but this felt like he had even before they'd met.


End file.
